I was sort of tempted to pursue this. I did a few years in the salty COBOL mines back when I was a PFY about 20...plus years ago. This niche probably hasn't moved very much since then and I could probably recall most of it after a few hours. I'm freelancing right now anyway and some other projects just vaporized.
But.
A quick skim of the postings is finding that what they're really screaming for is somebody who's been familiar with their particular pile of toxic waste for at least four years at minimum. They're asking for people with 4+ years of COBOL, and JCL (ok, fine), and DB2, and VSAM, and "SDLC" (proto-waterfall), and, oh yeah, a four-year degree.
Heck, there's a posting asking for somebody to draw diagrams and document their existing processes, and for that they expect you to have 10 years of COBOL experience.
Okay then. This is not yet a mess that they're motivated enough to fix.
But.
A quick skim of the postings is finding that what they're really screaming for is somebody who's been familiar with their particular pile of toxic waste for at least four years at minimum. They're asking for people with 4+ years of COBOL, and JCL (ok, fine), and DB2, and VSAM, and "SDLC" (proto-waterfall), and, oh yeah, a four-year degree.
Heck, there's a posting asking for somebody to draw diagrams and document their existing processes, and for that they expect you to have 10 years of COBOL experience.
Okay then. This is not yet a mess that they're motivated enough to fix.